Recent Posts
The Engine Room
Return To Blog Listing
A blog about English language use, publishing and the media in general – brought to you by a sub-editor (copy editor) on a weekly UK magazine and his former chief sub.
If you have a question about vocabulary, grammar or punctuation, why not ask
Recent Posts Tagged With 'headlines'
Headlines: \'Major massacres\'
On Friday, I walked past a folded, discarded copy of Metro and caught the first deck of its two-deck front page headline. It read: "Major massacres".This left me wondering what massacres it was referring to, and when exactly a massacre became a "majo...
Headline: Grant seals return to Portsmouth
I first saw this headline out of context - in a giant news ticker in the window of my local Sainsbury's supermarket. It left me wondering what Grant seals were, and why they had abandoned Portsmouth in the first place. Perhaps the water was too pollu...
From the sublime to the Mr Pricklepants
News stories, in print and online, can catch your eye for all sorts of reasons. Absurdity is one of them:A colleague of mine called me over to his desk just to share this Empire headline (and strapline/standfirst?) with me. I'm glad he did.We didn't ...
Headlines: Gordon Brown ordered mission...
R Mason spotted this poorly written headline on the Times Online website:She writes:When I first read this, I wondered: why would a mission hold a journalist? Why would Gordon Brown give it orders?(If you can't see the picture, the headline reads: "G...
Ex-minister Blears' car attacked
I didn't know that Hazel Blears' car used to be a cabinet minister:According to a BBC News story today:Former cabinet minister Hazel Blears' car has been attacked while she was out canvassing voters.I wonder whether the car fiddled its expenses. Sorr...
Whites searched 'for race balance'. Did they find it?
My first thought on seeing Metro's main front page headline today was: 'So did they find it?'As it turns out, 'whites' is the object, not the subject, of the headline (which is written in the passive voice).(UPDATE 19/07/09: As Garik points out in th...
Headines: 'Pilot recycling scheme under way'
A colleague of mine, Sue, has pointed out this great BBC News headline:"What do you do with recycled pilots, I wonder?" Sue asks.Which reminds me of that old saying: "Old pilots never die, they just go to a higher plane..." ...
Reporter wins Nobel Prize. Sorry, I mean Pulitzer
A bit of confusion in this Wired PR News story between a Pulitzer Prize and a Nobel Prize (as usual, click to see a larger image):To be fair, Wired PR News spotted its mistake and offered a correction the following day, although the story with its or...
How to write headlines that make headlines
Today we have a guest post contributed by Katie Wilson, who writes about accreditation for online universities. She welcomes your feedback at KatieWilson06 at gmail.com. Thanks, Katie!One thing I’ve learned in all my years as a writer is that you e...
Jade Goody still lives
Something topical for a change on The Engine Room. Gareth wrote in this morning with the following:Spotted an interesting headline on the front page of the London Lite last night.The headline, under a big picture of Jade Goody, was "JADE: FEARS JACK ...
Gordon Brown sorry over assault arrest. Really?
Headline four in this BBC News widget left me wondering who Prime Minister Gordon Brown might have assaulted:It turns out that the story was about R&B star Chris Brown... but how was I supposed to know that? I imagine that most UK readers would t...
EU gives shark protection teeth
I was very briefly confused by the bottom headline in this 'Other top stories' widget on the Science & Environment section of the BBC News website:It left me wondering what 'protection teeth' were, and why the EU would give some to a shark. Surel...
